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Our country faces a test like never before, and journalism needs to rise to the challenge. If you can, please help us get to the $400,000 goal Mother Jones needs to keep going strong with a donation today.

1870s Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other feminists promote “voluntary motherhood,” advocating abstinence as the best form of birth control.

1873 Postal inspector Anthony Comstock crusades against “obscenity” such as birth control. The Comstock Act, which prohibits mailing contraceptives or information about them, remains in effect until 1965.

1914 Margaret Sanger’s pro-contraception tract The Woman Rebel is banned as obscene under the Comstock Act. Sanger (left) coins the term “birth control” later that year. In the 1930s, she becomes a eugenicist.

1917-18 18,000 STD-ridden doughboys take sick; US military distributes condoms.

1920s Contraceptives sold as “feminine hygiene” products. Douching with Lysol promoted as a way “to help protect your married happiness.”

1930 Anglican Church becomes the first to approve of birth control that is “in the light of Christian principles.” Six months later, Pope Pius XI deems birth control a “grave sin.”

1936 A federal appeals court rules that doctors can send contraceptives through the mail.

1937 The American Medical Association recognizes birth control as a legitimate part of a doctor’s practice.

1942 US Navy training film USS VD: Ship of Shame urges sailors to “put it on before you put it in.”

1952 John D. Rockefeller III, father of four, founds the Population Council: “Our concern is for the quality of human life, not the quantity of human life.”

1959 President Eisenhower says promoting birth control “is not a proper political or governmental activity.” He changes his mind 9 years later: “Governments must act…Failure would limit the expectations of future generations to abject poverty and suffering.”

1960 30 states still prohibit or restrict the sale and advertisement of contraceptives under the Comstock Act.

2009 The Austrian co-inventor of the pill, Carl Djerassi, laments low birth rates caused by childless Europeans who want “to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it.”

2010 100,000 condoms handed out to Olympians in Vancouver run out in less than two weeks; a last-minute shipment provides additional coverage.

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Dear Reader,

This feels like the most important fundraising drive since I've been CEO of Mother Jones, with staggeringly high stakes and so much uncertainty. In "News Is Just Like Waste Management," I try to unpack the reality we all face and how we can rise to the challenge. If you're able to, this is a critical moment to support Mother Jones’ nonprofit journalism: We need to raise $400,000 to help cover the vital reporting projects we have planned, and right now is no time to pull back.